On Tuesday, Google unveiled Google Play, a one-stop-shop for all of Google’s software services and applications.
That means that Google Music, Google Books, Google’s movie streaming service and the Android Marketplace, the storefront for Android apps, will all be housed together under a single application and Web destination — Google Play. The idea, said Jamie Rosenberg, Google’s director of digital content for Android, is to knit the various pieces of Android’s ecosystem into “a single Google experience around digital content.”
Mr. Rosenberg said Google plans to begin rolling out updates to Android phones and tablets over the next several weeks but that the Web hub, which all Google users can access, will be open to the public and available for browsing immediately. Android users who purchase songs or books on their devices will also be able to get to them through the Web site and vice versa, Google users who buy movies and songs on the Web will also have access to them on their Android devices. In addition, Google Play will make recommendations for applications, books and songs that its users might like to buy and download, based on their past purchases and browsing history.
The newly revised experience helps Android, which at best, can be described as fragmented, offer a much more streamlined experience and continuum of continuity across the company’s diverse ecosystem of tablets and smartphones — which other rivals in the industry, including Apple and Microsoft, are also working to establish.
Mr. Rosenberg said that Google was aware that shoppers were “aligning around ecosystems” and that company hoped this new effort would help entice people to stay within the Google realm for a much longer period of time.
“We think that it takes a number of products that are individually excellent and brings them together into a unified experiences for users,” he said.